News: Terrorism and fundamentalism

How the Iranian Regime Is Waging a Proxy War in the Middle East

NCRI - The Iranian Regime has been merging its proxy groups across the Middle East with existing local defence forces in various countries, which become a part of that country’s army.

This is evidenced in an April 2017 memo from the Syrian armed forces, which stated that the defence forces would replace the Iranian proxies eventually. This may lead you to believe that Iran is removing itself from the Syrian conflict, but this is simply untrue.

They are removing their proxies to go to other places in the Middle East, but once the ideology has been spread, the local defence groups will become Iranian proxies themselves and can become far more influential if everybody thinks that the Iranian Regime is not involved.

This tactic has been used by the Iranian Regime already in Iraq with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Lebanon with Hezbollah, two groups that are now immensely in their respective countries and its political system. The Iranian Regime has deployed the PMF and Hezbollah to Syria and other areas of conflict and even used them to train terrorists.

The groups are even known to work together, as a video of Qais al-Khazali, the leader of PMF affiliate Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, at the Lebanese-Israeli border in December shows. In the video, Khazali states that he is there with Hezbollah to oppose Israel.

This move doesn’t reduce the number of Iranian proxies involved in conflicts across the Middle East, but increases them. There are then more pro-Iran regional militias to help create Iran’s dream of a Shiite Crescent across the Middle East, which would make it easier to create more proxies by supporting more local defence forces.

Through the Shiite Crescent, the Iranian proxies could spread across Europe and eventually across the world if they aren’t stopped.

The Regime's overall goal in creating more proxies is to export the Iranian Islamic ideology across the region and eventually the world, just as it already has done in Iraq and Lebanon.

Ahmed, a Hezbollah member, said that there are also Hezbollah factions in Syria and Iraq, which share the same ideology and regional goals.

He said: “All of these factions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon will fight side by side with each other in the next war.”

That is a very worrying prospect for anyone concerned about Iranian aggression and expansionism, national sovereignty, peace in the Middle East, and extremist Islamic ideology.

This is another reason that the Iranian Regime should not be allowed to reach its 40th anniversary in 2019.